G5 & Logic

[Charlie-O]

After using my macbook for a year and letting my G5 collect dust. I finally fired it back o for mixing, and I must say.... It smokes my macbook! The number of tracks I can play, and the amount of plugins be for cpu failure is much better. My G5 is a dual 1.8, with 2 gigs of ram. Witch is in no way considered modern any more, but for mixing, its still great. I must say, I do have to freeze allot of stuff, but thats fine by me, it works, and works fairly fast.

Probably got close to 70 plugins going, with the majority of them frozen. Consisting of a Logic compressor (my fav right now) on almost every track, Apeq (also my fav) on every single track, Some C1's here and there, 1 max bass, 2 space designers, a CSR hall, 2 mixpressors, and some delays etc. This is an instrumental mix, and I am really happy this morning that Logicic is pulling its weight again. (finally) I will say this though, its crashed three times in the last 3 hours, . But I am becoming accustomed to it, and am sure my G5 needs some maintenance, so I have been saving often.

I've been holding off on a Mac pro for a while, and I think I can hold a bit longer now. Another month perhaps.

I think the biggest factor is that Im no longer mixing the VI's. Im converting everything to audio, and transfer to a new session. REad this and tried it, I was so caught in leaving everything midi for as long as possible, for editing purposes. I finally let go, and what a difference.


Wow just to test, I took the freeze off of everything, and wow and behold, its playing through! The cpu meters are pinned, but its chugging along. Im sure when I do upgrade, it will be worthwhile.


Peace,
Charlie O

[astronmr20]

...so why will you only use it for another month?

[navitus]

Am in the same boat. Have a Dual 2.3 which does quite well, but the newer 3rd party instrument plug-ins really take a huge toll.
I think u should have one project for composition, then export ur softsynths as audio tracks and mix in a new project.
I'm also gonna now finally gonna make use of the multitimbral feature where available instead of opening many instances of the same plug-in.

For audio and effects only, the G5 is still very very useable.

My only beef is that Ableton Live is a dog on G5's, whereas it rocks on Intel macs.

BTW, what does adding RAM do. If i am correct more CPU power equals to more plug-ins, more Ram would make the G5 performance snappier, faster screen redraws etc ?? Am i correct ? Plug windows and starting up Logic takes a while, will adding Ram help in this ?

Thanks
F

[Charlie-O]

Originally Posted by astronmr20

...so why will you only use it for another month?

Because its hard to resist all that power there that the new macs are offering. Im also opening another facility (finally). Im looking forward to not having to freeze and make compromises with computer. Im still on the fence....




Peace,
Charlie O

[Charlie-O]

Originally Posted by navitus

Am in the same boat. Have a Dual 2.3 which does quite well, but the newer 3rd party instrument plug-ins really take a huge toll.
I think u should have one project for composition, then export ur softsynths as audio tracks and mix in a new project.
I'm also gonna now finally gonna make use of the multitimbral feature where available instead of opening many instances of the same plug-in.

For audio and effects only, the G5 is still very very useable.

My only beef is that Ableton Live is a dog on G5's, whereas it rocks on Intel macs.

BTW, what does adding RAM do. If i am correct more CPU power equals to more plug-ins, more Ram would make the G5 performance snappier, faster screen redraws etc ?? Am i correct ? Plug windows and starting up Logic takes a while, will adding Ram help in this ?

Thanks
F

Plugins require ram as well. Especially the sample based ones. The ram is how the data gets to the cpu.

Peace,
Charlie O